by Ex-Jo Ho 17 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Well I was living with my Stepfather and Mother. My stepfather absolutely hated the Witnesses and my mother, even though she had been one in the past, told me she was going to shun (not talk to me) if I 'didn't' get out of the Witnesses !
So, in that sense, my parents were not a problem at all. I do have a daughter along with several cousins etc. that are still in so that is my concern.
Outaservice
Still do, and I'm 53.
No by parents were abusive but not overzealous with regard to the WTS; my father wasn't a JW but my mother was a JW when it was convenient for her.
I have heard of overzealous husbands who forbade their wives to cut their hair, wear makeup, wear high heels, skirt lengths had to be ankle length, no hair dyeing, no jewelry except a wedding band. But they "allowed" their wives to work full-time but confiscated every dime they made and spent it on beer, cars, etc.
Blondie
My mother is such a zealot it is ridiculous. No matter topic i bring up it always go's back to the Watchtower. I remember asking her what she thought about Pres Bush. She goes on about how we must wait for gods kingdom. My dad tells her about a news story about kids getting shot in school, and she says, "well this is the coclusion of this system of things" Its so annoying that no one can have a conversation with her. At my Grandpa's funeral which was in a church, after the service, shes ranting an raving about how Babylon the great is teaching people about going to heaven and this is false religion. This is at my grandfathers funeral for petes sake. People are crying ans shes talking babylon the great. I love her but shes a Loon.
While on this rant. As a kid, whenever a friend came over who wasnt a witness she would come downstairs and start offering my friends watchtowers and asking them for bible studies. So went all my friends. When i moved out she tried to do that to my room mates girlfriend. I told her this is not her house and she had to stop. She says: i will not stop talking about jehovah. And when I was a teenager she must have taken me to the elders for everything. She found porn...told the elders. Found a note from a worldly chick i was porking...told me either i went to the elders or she would...i called her bluf...and she went to the elders. Im so disgusted just typing this
Something I remember as a JW kid, was at an elders house. His little daughter had lied ( 10 yrs old I think), and her punishment was to be locked in a closet with a tablespoon of cheyenne pepper (or some kind of tabasco spice, I cant be sure) and she could not come out until she ate it and sat in there for a while. The thing that really struck me, was that he put a waste basket in the closet with her. Nothing else, just that basket. Her brother told me, it was to tempt her into spitting it out, and then the punishment would be 10 times worse. Fortunately, she did not spit it out. It was the cruelty of the basket that stuck in my mind more than anything else.
The worst thing my Mom did was throw out all my comic books when an Awake article came out in the early 80's warning about how dangerous they were. That sucked, but it was better than what some other kids were getting.
By the way, the closet incident occured in the early 80's, on Cape Cod Massachusetts, in the good old U.S. of A.
I remember the last name of the family, and some of the first names. If, by some miracle, any of the kids in that family are reading this post, I hope you are doing well, and you can contact me if you like.
All said and done, Ex-Jo Ho...You are not alone. It just gets crazier the deeper you get.
Oh Yes....just look at the My Journey posts I've been putting up. Its comforting to know that I was not the only one.
tsof
When I tell my JW family members about my experiences growing up with Watchtower Terrorists as parents they try to excuse them as being over-zealouse and over-bearing, but if you read the litterature of the era, they were just being good JWs.
Cheers
Chris
